a book about Koizumi, said that his goal was to shake as many individual hands as possible and to leave the impression that he was kind enough to visit them, something which he could not achieve by campaigning in big cities. In October 2013, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Tohoku Recovery, in which capacity he would oversee post-disaster reconstruction efforts in Iwate Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture. Ishiba, then secretary general of the LDP, stated that Koizumi "made a very strong case" with local disaster victims "about what he wanted to do and why." Tokoi characterized this posting as a test of Koizumi's administrative ability. Koizumi was reportedly considered for a formal cabinet post under the Abe government in the reshuffles of October 2015 and July 2017. On 11 September 2019, Abe appointed Koizumi as Minister of the Environment. He advocated for environmentalist policies, including ending Japan's use of nuclear and coal power, despite serving in a government considered skeptical of such policies. However, he supports the construction of new coal-fired power stations in Japan, despite their particulate and greenhouse gas emissions. His support for the construction of two coal-fired power stations in Yokosuka has led him to be a "a target of activists' wrath". In late August 2020, after the resignation of Shinzo Abe, Koizumi was named as a possible successor. A Kyodo News survey showed that almost 9% of those surveyed preferred him for prime minister, though some inside the party consider him too young to be in charge of the country. He later formally withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Minister of Defense Tarō Kōno. In the party's leadership election of 2021 (which ended with Fumio Kishida being elected as leader and later prime minister), Koizumi again endorsed Kōno for the position. Views Like his father, Koizumi visits Yasukuni Shrine on 15 August, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. He visited in 2012 and again in 2013. In a May 2013 interview with the Sankei Shimbun, he refused to comment on Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto's controversial remarks on comfort women, characterizing the issue as one that should be discussed among experts and historians rather than politicians. He described the perceived nationalist shift in Japanese politics as "Chinese propaganda" and stated that the government needed to wage a better public relations campaign against it while focusing on the successful implementation of Abenomics. He also